PlayStation 2

Classic SEGA Ads: “Open New Sense” with Rez on the Playstation 2

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It’s unfortunate that a game like United Game Artists’ Rez, the third and final title from the developer, ended up releasing at the time it did. One one hand it could be said that it was one of the Dreamcast’s final great games from an in-house developer, but on the other hand due to the time in which it was released over in Japan, US and European releases were at the time up in the air. While the United States missed out on Shenmue II, Headhunter, and Rez, those in Europe were lucky enough to end up with all three titles for their blue swirl emblazoned console. When it comes to digging up english language commercials for Rez, prepare to be disappointed. Due to SEGA’s shifting interests, english Dreamcast ads for the game are non-existent. In fact, when digging for UGA game ads, I didn’t even come across a Japanese Dreamcast ad for the game.

Thankfully, not all is lost! Rez saw worldwide release on Sony’s Playstation 2, and while english ads still seemingly never materialized, we did get a collection of corny Japanese ads for the game. The first, seen above, features a man on a toilet who gets into a wall pounding contest with a man who really has to go. They end up pounding the wall in rhythm, and in turn they “Open New Sense” before the man outside punches straight through the wall.

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Retro Review: Space Channel 5 (Sega Dreamcast/PS2)

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The Dreamcast era was a unique time for SEGA when it came to marketing their characters. While the Saturn’s launch made the error of shifting the spotlight away from Sonic the Hedgehog, the Dreamcast launch proved that there was more than enough room for established characters as well as new faces. Joining Sonic was a lineup of first party and third party faces, from Midway’s Afro Thunder of Ready 2 Rumble and Namco’s Soulcalibur fighters to SEGA’s own creations.

Space Channel 5’s Ulala was without a doubt the most heavily marketed of these new characters, with her face seen just about everywhere. Ulala appeared in a promotional stage show at Universal City Walk, she dominated SEGA’s booth at 2000’s E3, she was seen in print and on TV and even appeared as product placement in the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats. There was even talk of Ulala hosting her own TV show! Suffice to say, there came a point in Space Channel 5‘s promotion where Ulala nearly overshadowed her own game. There is no doubt that Ulala is a fantastic character (she is a favorite of the SEGAbits staff, so much so that we named our podcast after her report show), but has the original game stood the test of time? Let’s find out as we look back at the United Game Artists’ classic Space Channel 5!

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Year of the Developers: Experience synesthesia with SEGA’s United Game Artists

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This month we are proud to celebrate the unique and musical driven games of United Game Artists (ユナイテッド・ゲーム・アーティスツ). The team was made up of members of SEGA AM6 and headed by Sega AM3’s Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Unfortunately, the team was short lived and only released three titles under the ‘United Game Artists’ banner. Regardless, those three games have made such an impact on us gamers that we are still talking about them over a decade later.

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Year of the Developers: A look back at the games of SEGA’s WOW Entertainment

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When SEGA WOW Month began, we took a look back at the games of SEGA’s Overworks. While Overworks existed for only a short span of time before merging with WOW Entertainment, this month has made it very clear that Skies of Arcadia made a major impact on SEGA fans. But what of WOW Entertainment? Unlike Overworks, WOW managed to release a large number of games spanning different genres on different pieces of hardware. From sequels to classic franchises like The House of the Dead and Columns, to new franchises like SEGA GT and arcade oddities like The Typing of the Dead, a collaboration with Namco, and a dog walking simulator. While WOW Entertainment can’t be pinned down to one iconic title, they more than made up for this with an amazing library of games!

Join us now for part two of our SEGA WOW retrospective, in which we take a look at the many games of WOW Entertainment.

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Retro Review: Shadow the Hedgehog

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On January 4th 2006, I submitted to Gamefaqs a review for Shadow the Hedgehog , a game which at the time I boldly declared “the worst SEGA game I’ve ever played.” To date, the 2/10 score I gave it is the lowest I’ve scored a game in any context, on any site I’ve reviewed for, and nothing I’ve played either before or since has inspired a similar score. My outlook on SEGA at the time was incredibly bleak; it was a game that really tore down my confidence in the company and where it was headed, and for those reasons I’ve left this review, for the most part, as is, as a piece of history for how I viewed SEGA at the time, and where I feared the company was headed. Though I’ve edited it a little for form and trimmed it down, the message remains intact. Read on for my thoughts on Shadow the Hedgehog, directly from 2006, as I sat down to review what was (and still is) the worst game I had ever played.

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The Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love Premium Pack!

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I’m eight months late to the party, but who cares. I’m the first to feature it at SEGAbits!

While SEGA’s Sakura Taisen franchise is insanely popular in Japan, having a number of main series games and spin-offs spanning the Saturn era through to the Dreamcast and Playstation 2, it has had little presence in English speaking regions. The fifth game in the series, Sakura Taisen V: Farewell, My Love, hit the Japanese PS2 in 2005. It wasn’t until 5 years later that the game received a very unexpected English language version. The PS2 received a handsome special edition box (America only from what I can tell) while the Wii received a standard version (which hit both America and Europe). While the game released back in March, it wasn’t until this weekend that I got around to picking up a copy for $30 at GameStop, marked down $10.

So what does this awesome box contain? Let’s take a look!

Click here to read more!

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Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love Trailer

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As you may known NIS America have taken up the task of publishing Sega and Red Entertainments ‘Sakura Wars V: So long, my love’ in the West.

While Sega have passed up the chance to publish this game, It is still a Sega game at heart. So sit back and enjoy this five minute trailer!

The game releases at the end of March!

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